Strategy games are seductive time sinks. Who has the time to possibly tinker with all those units? Who can spare the hours to toil in turn-based combat only to finally lose in a crushing, humiliating defeat? Start up one little game of XCOM, get a squad going, and eight hours can disappear out from under you faster than you can say, "Overwatch!"

Julian Gollop (@Julian_Gollop) is one of the men behind all those lost hours. The creator of XCOM, Laser Squad, Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars and many, many others, Gollop has spent thirty years designing tactics games that test both wits and nerve. Chaos Reborn, his latest game, brings Gollop back to his roots; it's a reimagining of his 1985 ZX Spectrum game Chaos: The Battle of Wizards. Unlike XCOM and Shadow Wars, Chaos Reborn pits player against player in tactical standoffs that are downright swift. The designer joins Alexander Sliwinski (@Sliwinski) and Anthony John Agnello (@ajohnagnello) on Joystiq Streams for a few friendly matches in the prototype version of the game.

Joystiq Streams goes live on the Joystiq Twitch channel at 4PM EST so come down and bring your questions to Mr. Gollop himself. The stream archive will be available after 5PM EST and you can always catch Joystiq Streams at 4PM EST every Tuesday and Thursday. A Kickstarter campaign to fund Chaos Reborn will begin on March 14.